A soul to spare

It was a perfect morning, or it would have been if it weren’t for the splitting headache, the sun’s rays feeling like they wanted to burn a hole in my soul, and the pony that was now in my room, shouting.

“Jake, hey Jake, get up already” the voice was tearing into my ears. Why won’t you just let me sleep?

Slowly I managed to drag myself into a sitting position. Captain asshat was standing in the room tapping one of his hooves impatiently.

I let out a long groan, “go away, and who the fuck is Jake” it was way too early for this shit, and my hangover did not help.

I saw the corner of his mouth twitch as he let some involuntary sounds slip through.

Was he? No.

“pffff ahahahahahaha” the bastard was laughing at me

It took a few moments but he managed to calm himself enough to talk. “Hehe. You, you’re Jake. You named yourself last night, memory a bit fuzzy?” Dash was still snickering to himself while grinning like a madman. Damn, what did I do last night?

“But that aside, get your ass into the bathroom and get ready. You are having breakfast with the Princess in 15 minutes.”

Making my way into the bathroom I noticed something strange. On the sink was a single iron arrow, it looked like it was crudely made and I could have sworn that I had seen it before. I remembered, this looked exactly like the arrow that I was shot with. Why was it here, I remembered the nurse said that it had been thrown away. And for some reason I got a creepy feeling from it, like it was staring into my very soul. Quickly I picked it up and dropped it into the trash. Shaking my head I simply poured myself a bath and sunk into my little heaven.

I got a short summary of some of yesterday’s events, as we walked through the halls towards our destination. I had somehow managed to drink almost the entire bar dry, but still had time to go out and wreck one of the nearby merchant stalls that were selling pickles and return to the bar to continue drinking before Captain Dash here showed up serves them right, pickles are evil. According to what the barkeep had told Dash, I had apparently met no resistance when I took over the bar, as he so nicely put it. This however was not the case. While last night was fuzzy I remembered a shady looking earth pony pulling a knife on me, threatening me to go away. That courage of his disappeared quickly once I ate his knife though.

A double door was in front of us, one half had bright colors and a picture of the sun in the middle, the other half had a darker look to it and the moon was pictured on this one. Two guards were standing on each side of the door and gave us a quick salute before opening the door allowing us to enter. The dining hall was HUGE, colorful banners, all picturing the sun were hanging down from the roof. And I thought I spotted something move on top of some of the support beams in the roof, but quickly dismissed the thought. If someone is really up there it’s probably just some guards. The princess was already sitting by the end of the table waiting for us.

“Your highness” the Captain went down into a bow as he addressed her. Personally I didn’t think I needed to bow, but he thought otherwise as his hard hoof got personal with my shin and I bent down in pain clutching it.

Celestia shook her head and let out a little sigh, “Was that really necessary Captain? You know that I care little for such formalities”.

“Maybe so your highness, but he should still show his respect in your presence.”

By the time I got up, I saw that the table was now filled with different kinds of food and drink and servants which were not there a second ago were still bringing in more.

“Now dragon, after…” Celestia began but I cut her off almost immediately.

“Actually, it’s Jake now your highness. Apparently I named myself yesterday during my drunken adventures.” This earned me a hoof to the back of my head from captain asshat.

He almost hissed at me, through gritted teeth. “Don’t interrupt the princess”.

The princess simply watched us with an amused smile before she continued. “Well Jake. As I said, while I had planned that we continued our little talk from yesterday, I’m afraid that it will have to wait. I had hoped to keep your presence hidden from the public for the moment, but after your little *adventure* last night, the secret is out. I have to prepare a speech for my people to help calm them down. I should be able to pass you off as a foreign guest or dignitary, the real problem however will be if the dragon community gets air of this. So we will have our *talk* after sundown. I know you want answers, but it will have to wait.” I hadn’t noticed until now, but when she got up to leave I could see a tired look on her face, looks like I screwed up, bad. As she opened the door to leave, she turned back. “Captain since you and Jake here get along so well, you’ll watch him and make sure he stays out of trouble. Don’t let him out of your sight.”

“What? I’m stuck on foalsitting duty?” Captain Dash responded immediately, he was obviously not happy with this development.

The princess changed into an emotionless expression and raised one of her eyebrows. “Yes. Will that be a problem captain?”

*gulp* “N-no of course not your highness. I will be happy to watch over him” I could see some sweat drops appearing on his forehead.

The princess smiled, I think I saw a glint of mischievousness in her eyes. “Good, now I’ll see both of you this evening” closing the door she left me alone eating breakfast with an angry Pegasus. The food itself was delicious. But I think I pissed off the ninja servants, they looked rather cross with me after the fifth time I ate the cutlery.

Captain Dash seemed a little amused with the death glares I got from the servants so I took this opportunity to try to at least defuse the situation a little bit, “well neither you nor me like the idea of you following me around all day. But there is little we can do about it, so let’s just try to get along.”

He let hung his head low and let out a long sigh. “Let’s just get going”

Heh, he is warming up to me I thought, following the captain into the hallway.

“- all things considered that went rather well. Although there was really no need for you to eat all the silverware. ”

I was walking through the halls with captain dash as he was making his rounds, truth be told it wasn’t all bad.

“The first time was an accident, but it tasted so good it was hard not to continue. But I’m wondering. I get why you guys wanted to keep me from the town so I wouldn’t scare the ponies. But what was that about the dragon society, why would that be a bad thing?” even if Celestia had to postpone our meeting, I was hoping that captain Dash here could answer a question or two.

“Well, I only know a little but I guess it’s better than nothing. This has to do with the dragon wars that occurred over 200 years ago. While most ponies have forgotten, dragons are quite long-lived and they tend to hold a grudge. I don’t remember what caused the war in the first place, but I do remember one important key factor to our victory. The silver dragons have always had a good reaction to the ponies and allied themselves with us during these dark times. Eventually a peace treaty was worked out, but the silver dragons were found guilty of treason and hunted to extinction. That’s where the problem is, you have the general appearance of a silver dragon and it is possible that if the dragons got wind of this, they would hunt you down as well. So by doing your little stunt yesterday, not only did you possibly endanger yourself, but the city of Canterlot as well.” He let out a deep sigh and shook his head.

He looked sad and troubled. Not really a surprise I guess. I messed things up pretty badly. “Hey, shit happens. Let’s go find something to do before I die of boredom.” He hung his head and looked even more troubled. This was not the same captain asshat I know and love. “Hey what’s wrong?” something was obviously bothering him, so I should at least pretend to care.

He simply looked up and flashed a grin. “Meh, it’s nothing. But what about you, so far you haven’t told us anything about yourself. Care to enlighten me?”

I was expecting this to come up when I talked with Celestia, but I didn't really feel like talking about my past. “Well I’m a human… used to be at least. I guess I had an average childhood, nothing too interesting. Later I had to drop out of school and take odd jobs to make ends meet, due to some… circumstances...”

“Whoa, slow down with all that information.” He gave me a deadpan stare. “Come on you have to have something interesting to tell. Something special about you, or a tale or two from your childhood? Or you could tell me about your family.” I froze. Several emotions flashed through my mind, but anger and sorrow were the strongest ones.

“Never, ever mention my family again. I don’t care what you want to know, but I won’t talk about them.” To be honest I was glad that he asked about them now and not last night. I have a problem with holding my mouth shut when I’m drunk.

He held his stare for a moment before nodding. “Alright, I will leave it alone for now. Well since I’m almost done with the rounds, how about we go down to the grounds and beat some shape into that scrawny body of yours?”

“That’s just an expression right?”

“…”

“Right?”

Sadly it wasn’t. I protested a little in consideration of my injuries, but was brushed off when he said that he would simply “avoid striking them”. He told me to just try to hit him, by whatever means necessary. But every time I missed he would retaliate. Needless to say I got hit a lot, while he had dodged every single one of my attempts so far. Towards the end I was running completely on anger and irritation, I needed to get a hit in, to give some hurt back, if even just a little bit.

“Alright, you look pretty winded out so I think we will call it there. Come on we have some showers we can use over by the barracks.”

But I wasn’t done, far from it. When he turned around to walk away I saw a chance and took it, lunging towards him. He must have heard me because he dodged just before I connected with the back of his head, instead only grazing his cheek. He put his weight forward and delivered a powerful kick with his hind legs, right into my stomach. Falling down onto my back, I couldn’t do anything but laugh.

“Ahahahahahaha, unbelievable. You’ve been pulling all your punches haven’t you captain?” I could not be mad at him after this, wasn’t him I was angry with to begin with.

“Of course I have, can’t expect me to go serious on someone that’s wounded. But you have to admit, it’s a nice way to release some of your frustration. And stop calling me captain, you don’t work for me. Razor is more than enough.” He had barely broken a sweat, but he was right. I needed this after all the things that have happened recently.

He held out a hoof, offering to help me up. I was going to accept but a sound stopped me. The sound of metal striking metal, my mind went completely blank.

Razor noticed my pause. “You okay there? Didn’t hit you too hard, did I?”

I heard it again, and again. It was hypnotizing; I got up and started walking towards the sound. I had to find it.

“HEY, showers are thata way… Where are you going?” he tried to stop me a few times but my body was on autopilot.

The building that the sounds were coming from was just behind the guard barracks. It was a forge. Smoke could be seen rising from the chimney and strangely enough this building had a nostalgic feel to it. In the front I could see a Pitch black earth pony with a rustic yellow colored mane. He was standing over an anvil working on a glowing hot metal piece. Every time he brought the hammer down, he was showered with golden sparks.

“Why are we heading towards the smithy? You planning to do something stupid again?” A blacksmith? So the sounds I heard were him striking that metal. “I don’t know, it’s just that it feels… familiar. I just had to check it out.”

“Well we got nothing better to do, so might as well go say hello to old iron hoof.”

We got a little closer before Razor wanted to try to rupture my ear drums.

“HEY OL IRON. HOWS IT GOIN?”

I hadn’t noticed from a distance but now up close I got a better view of this smith. He was huge, not only in height, but I could see his muscles shift with every movement he took. As he turned around to greet us I got a look at his cutiemark it was a golden anvil with two hammers crossed behind it, makes sense I guess.

He put down his hammer and looked upon Razor with an annoyed expression. “I wish you would stop calling me old, I’m just a few years older than you anyway.” He turned to me, glancing over me with a couple of lazy eyes. “So this here is the lad that caused a ruckus down in town last night huh? What are you two doing here anyway?” lad? technically I’m a couple of centuries older than you. Granted, I was asleep for most of those years but it still counts.

“Well dragon boy here found your forge intriguing, and wanted to take a look.”

I shot Razor a threatening glance. “Call me dragon boy again and you might find yourself waking up one day with some important parts missing. But yea there was something about the sounds of you forming the metal that just felt hypnotizing.” I looked up, towards the forge. “It’s just something about this that feels familiar, which is weird because I have never had anything to do with blacksmithing before.” I could feel the urge to walk over there and start working. Start hammering away at the glowing hot metal, slowly shaping it into an object of choice.

“Well you are more than welcome to take a look around, say what. Since you’re so fascinated with it, why don’t I show you a thing or two?”

We stayed there for the remainder of the day. Iron showed me a couple of things about smithing itself, but the thing is as he explained it, I already knew what he was talking about. It… confused me. How did I know these things? It made no sense. *Did he change something in my mind as well?.*

Remembering that I forgot something rather important I went off, over to the barracks to take a shower. I returned to overhear what I think was the end of a rather interesting conversion.

“–any progress on the disappearances?”

“No I’m afraid not, more and more just keep disappearing every day, even some of my own guards. We have scoured the entire city and found absolutely nothing, there are no signs of where any of them might have gone not even any signs of a struggle if they were taken by force.” Razor’s voice was full of despair. I can’t blame him for feeling a little down though; anyone would probably feel the same in his situation.

“It all started a little over a week ago right? Are you sure that hes got nothing to do with it? I mean he showed up at the same time. It’s too much of a –“Razor silenced him with a glare.

“Let me just stop you right there. I agree that it can’t be a coincidence but he was stuck in the hospital, unconscious for the whole week. I stopped by myself to check up on him, unless he managed to slip out of his chains and then back into them without anypony noticing it couldn’t have been him.”

They hadn’t seen me so I just pretended not to have heard anything. “So Razor, how long until I’m supposed to meet the princess?” the sun was beginning to set so it couldn’t be too long.

“She wanted to meet you in the gardens after sundown. So we still have an hour or so”

“I see. You mind if we head over there now?” it would be nice to just sit down and enjoy the quiet and think things over.

“I don’t see why not.” We said goodbye to Iron Hoof and headed towards the castle gardens.

The gardens were beautiful. It was filled with all kinds of different flowers and trees. All of them tended to and formed to create a perfect little haven. We went over to a little pond, and laid down in the grass in front of it. The cool air together with a soft wind created a relaxing ambience. It was nice to just lay there and enjoy silent beauty of nature.

I decided to break the silence after a little while. “Sorry about my little outburst earlier. It’s just that family has been a touchy subject for me. Especially now that I’m here and can’t return home.”

He picked up a small pebble and tossed it into the pond, watching the ripples slowly grow. “It’s alright. We all have our demons, some bigger than others but still.” He picked up another pebble and threw it into the pond too. The ripples were now merging. “You know, it usually gets easier if you let it out.”

I let out a long sight, as a looked up on the night sky. “So I’ve heard… so I have heard many a time. I’m not really one to open up you know. Besides, why should I? To you of all people.”

“Ponies”

“Whatever. But why should I open up? I barely know you or anyone else here for that matter.” It finally sunk in. I was really stuck here. What was I going to do now? Maybe Celestia could help me with that, or at least that’s what I hoped.

“You shouldn’t. Not to me, not now. But you should let it out, someday.” I was about to reply, but was stopped by the sounds of hoofsteps coming closer.

We got up and turned to meet whoever was coming. Maybe it’s the princess. It’s after sundown after all I thought, and I was right. Her multi colored mane floating in the wind as she stepped forth.

We both went down into a bow. Razor did it out of respect, me because I didn’t want him to hit me again.

Celestia lowered her head slightly before speaking. “Hello captain, Jake. I hope you have been having a good day and that you have been keeping our guest safe and out of trouble captain?”

We rose again and Razor gave the princess a salute. “Of course your highness.”

“Good. Well I believe it’s finally time for our talk Jake. Time for you to get some answers.” She changed her gaze towards Razor “Captain, leave us and make sure that we are not disturbed.”

“At once your highness.” And with that he took to the air, quickly disappearing towards the castle.

Celestia walked over to the spot by the pond where we had been relaxing and sat down beside me.

“So Jake, I know must be aching for some answers now.” She turned to me, giving me a warming smile. “So ask away. I will answer to the best of my ability.

“I thought about this earlier, what am I supposed to do now? You say that I am stuck here in this world. I heard about the problem with the dragon society, so am I just supposed to stay in the castle now or something? What will happen to me?” I felt completely and utterly lost, and I was begging that she could help me in some way.

Celestia closed her eyes and looked like she was in deep thought before answering. “You are right, it would probably be best if you stayed confined to the castle and its premises for now. You have already been seen by the public but I would like to keep that to a minimum until I can sort out the situation with the dragon society.” She continued to give me the same story that I had gotten from Razor about the dragon war and silver dragons involvement in it. I didn’t interrupt her or mention that I already knew this part; she looked so engrossed in the story. So I just sat there and listened. Unlike Razor she had more details to give, the war had apparently been started by the dragon’s greed getting the better of them and lashing out. “– if they haven’t already gotten wind of you then I need to figure out how to reveal you. The fact that you are not a pure dragon should make it possible to defuse the situation. Can’t keep you locked away in the castle forever now can I?”

I let out a small laugh. “Yea, it would probably be best to get that over with.” Through this whole conversation her horn had been shimmering slightly, but she looked upon me with a sad expression as the golden glow dissipated.

“I-I’m sorry about your… sister.” I froze, WHAT.

“What. Did. You. Say?” how could she know, no one here knew. Right now my anger was only matched by my confusion.

“I’m s-sorry about your sister… Charlotte” she looked like she was about to say something else, but I cut her off before she had the chance.

“How? How do you know about that, about her? WHAT DO YOU KNOW?!?!?” I was furious, how did she know. How much does she know? I was slowly walking towards her with heavy steps, I could actually see my own breath, like how it is when it’s winter and really cold. But I cared little for that, I wanted answers.

Celestia didn’t flinch even so slightly. She barely reacted too my outburst at all. “I’m sorry for intruding but I inspected your mind slightly to know if I could actually trust you and give you free passage through the castle. I did however see more than I intended to, more specifically your situation with your sister.” A single tear fell from her eye, most of my anger dissipated at the heartbroken expression that she wore. “I’m so sorry”

I wanted to be mad at her, to lash out. She had rummaged through my mind and found one of the things I never talked to anyone about. But I couldn’t, I was just empty. I just stood before her with an emotionless gaze, “What did you see?” I needed to know how much she knew.

“I saw you and your sister all alone. You were taking care of her. I stopped before I saw more but I can make assumptions about the rest.” She walked over to me and laid her head on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. She is a strong girl. She will be alright”

Once more I had an emotional breakdown with Celestia present, and started sobbing into her shoulder. “B-but I failed her. She was my responsibility. How am I just supposed to let t-that go?”

“You are not. Things that we have no power over happen whenever we like it or not, and we just have to learn to live with it. Even if you make mistakes so big that you can never forgive yourself, you have to stand strong and continue, for them and yourself. I should know that better than anyone.” She pulled back and gazed up, towards the night sky.

“W-what do you mean?” I was curious about what she meant. Up until this point I had learned very little about the mysterious princess that stood before me.

Celestia looked like she was lost in thought and it took a moment before she answered. “I don’t suppose you have heard of the tale of the mare in the moon?” I simply shook my head. I knew about the man in the moon but I hadn’t heard of any tales in my short stay here. “I thought as much. Well it goes as following” her horn once more shimmered In its golden glow and as she told the story small figures of light played it out in front of us.

“Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there were two regal sisters who ruled together and created harmony for all the land. To do this, the eldest used her unicorn powers to raise the sun at dawn. The younger brought out the moon to begin the night. Thus, the two sisters maintained balance for their kingdom and their subjects, all the different types of ponies.

But as time went on, the younger sister became resentful. The ponies relished and played in the day her elder sister brought forth, but shunned and slept through her beautiful night. One fateful day, the younger sister refused to lower the moon to make way for the dawn. The elder sister tried to reason with her, but the bitterness in the young one's heart had transformed her into a wicked mare of darkness, Nightmare Moon. She vowed that she would shroud the land in eternal night.

Reluctantly, the elder sister harnessed the most powerful magic known to ponydom, The Elements of Harmony. Using the magic of The Elements of Harmony, she defeated her younger sister and banished her permanently in the moon. The elder sister took on responsibility for both sun and moon and harmony has been maintained in Equestria for generations since.” Her tone and facial expression remained the same through the entire story, I don’t even think she noticed that she was crying.

“That is the tale of the mare in the moon. And judging by your expression I guess you understood it” of course I understood it. In the context that she told it in it would be impossible not to do so.

“What do you do then? How do you deal with it?”

She lifted a hoof to her face, to wipe away some of the tears that stained her fur. “I remain strong for her. I can never forgive myself for what I did to her, I keep thinking what if I did something differently, noticed it and tried to help her earlier. I don’t deserve to keep ruling for what I did to her but it’s because of her that I must remain. She, just as I loved her subjects very dearly. And in her absence I will watch over them. And I will continue to do so, just as I have done for the last 897 years. I have to keep strong until she returns.”

She was right. I have to keep strong, for her sake. I knew that she would be okay, a few tough years perhaps. But in the end it would be alright. “Thank you” it felt like a huge weight had been lifted off me, I thought back on everything we had been through together and a song came to mind, a song from home that I used to sing to her when she was younger and felt sad or troubled. Slowly I started singing, reminding myself of all the times we had.

During the song, Celestias horn lit up and she joined in, singing the other part, her magic linking us.

“That was beautiful. What does it mean?”

“The song is called Tir n'a Noir, and it refers to a mythical land. The song itself is about a man that has lost a loved one, and he misses her dearly. He has grown old and is dying. When he dies he sails to Tir n'a Noir, which is heaven to reunite with her. But I think I will call it a night princess. Thank you, for everything.” I got up and was going to start walking back to my room in the castle but Celestia stopped me.

“I know you must be tired, a lot has happened. But there is one last thing I would like of you tonight. Your presence had been requested by a very special individual. Your rest will have to wait until after this meeting.

I really wanted to brush this off and go to bed, but I guessed I owed the princess this much at least. “Alright, shall we go then?”

She led me through the castle, towards its lower levels. I tried to ask who we were meeting several times but she avoided the question every time. We had gotten to what seemed like an ordinary dusty wine cellar well at least now I know where I need to go to get drunk since I’m not allowed outside the castle grounds. . I was about to check out some of the bottles but stopped as a rumbling sound filled the entire room and a section of the far and wall opened up, revealing a hidden doorway.

As she led me down the hidden hallway I noticed that the walls grew wider and rougher and the roof got higher. It almost started to look more like a cave than a hallway. On the walls there were several crystals that glowed and provided a natural light to this otherwise gloomy tunnel. After a while of walking through this bland tunnel, the walls were widening and the roof was rising quite rapidly to form a gigantic grotto. In the middle I was piles of gold and jewels, but that wasn’t what had me standing there slack jawed. On top of the piles of gold was a humongous dragon. The light from the crystals was reflecting on its silver scales, creating a magnificent light show.

“This is who wanted to see you. This is Melandra, the last of the silver dragons. We managed to hide her away down here in the depths of Canterlot Mountain while the rest were being hunted.”

Melandra opened her eyes to gaze upon us, and the gentlest voice I have ever heard filled the room.

“Greetings Celestia, and to you too young Jake. I had sensed your presence and asked Celestia to bring you here to see it for myself.” She lowered her head down and stared directly at me. “It is as I thought. You have the soul of Azuros within you. I feared of what happened when they caught him. But it seems that he has found a new resting place in you” so she knew the dragon I was fused with. Maybe she also knew what was going on with this new body of mine.

“H-hello there Melandra, dragon lady. Do you mind if I ask you a couple of question?” needless to say I was more than a little scared of the behemoth that was standing in front of me.

“Not at all, young one. That is one of the reasons that I wanted to meet you. Even if the lineage of the silver dragons ends with me, you hold the essence of one and should learn what comes with your new form. So ask little one, and I will answer.”

“Well I want to know all about what being a silver dragon means, but there is one thing that I need to know right away. Earlier today it was like there was something foreign in my mind. At first it was just like a little pull. But when we were at the blacksmith and I watched him work, I knew things. I wanted to pick up a hammer and start working beside him, and I knew what I was supposed to do.” I failed to contain a yawn. “I’m not supposed to know this. How am I-” She interrupted me.

“I can understand your confusion young Jake. But there is nothing to worry about. Azuros, you see, was a one of the greatest smiths among dragons. It would seem that some of his memories are leaking through to you. You should not be surprised if you experience similar situations as the one you did at the smithy.”

“So what does that mean? That I will remember his life, as the memories bleed through?” I truly did not want a whole other life coming into my head.

“No it will not happen like that. I can still sense some of him in you, he would not pain you with the memories of his whole life, and it would drive a young mind like yours insane. But he can give you experiences that could be useful to you. A dragon’s soul is immense and he could have easily taken control when being put into your body. But he did not, he could not do that to an innocent being. His last acts of kindness.”

I had mixed feelings about this. On one hand it could be useful, learning some things the easy way. On the other it felt weird and scary that something else was affecting my mind. *No use dwelling on the things I can’t change though*. “Since I am part dragon, can I learn to breathe fire or something like that?” I had tried to do it earlier but with little success.

Melandra shifted her attention from me to Celestia, who just shrugged, *an impressive thing to do without arms I might add*. “I would have thought that you had discovered it yourself by now, since it is a thing that comes natural to all dragons. We silver dragons do not breathe fire like some of our other brethren. Instead we breathe-“she took a deep breath, and aimed it at me. An icing wind came across me; I could see the floor around me getting covered in ice and snow. But I was not faced by this at all. “We breathe cold and ice instead. It is our element and we are impervious to it. We are not as strong or agile as any of the other dragon races. Instead we silver dragons were superior in the field of magic.” Her entire body began to shine in a blinding white light. I held up my arms to prevent myself from being blinded.

When the light finally faded, she had disappeared. And in her place stood a pegasi mare with a shining silver coat, and a pure white mane. Her cutie mark was a book covered in blue flames.

“Well I think I will be joining you, it is time I left this dusty old cavern after all.” It was Melandra’s voice, but it came from…

“Melandra, is that you?” I had seen some display of magic up until this point but this was on a whole different level.

She looked at me with a smirk. “We silver dragons got a couple of nifty abilities. Now come along. Starting tomorrow, I will teach you how to be a proper dragon.